


To Storm or Fire

by pjo_annabeth_hoo



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, percy jackson - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pjo_annabeth_hoo/pseuds/pjo_annabeth_hoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annabeth and Piper are dead, and through Jason's and Percy's resentment and grief, it looks as though the earth will fall to storm. Through Percy's unbreakable anger, relations with the Romans are tense, and another civil war is on the verge of emerging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leo

 

His curly hair was plastered to the side of his head by the cold rain that fell from the sky. Leo stared at Jason, wanting to help him, but not sure how. The hurricane had been storming for days, reflecting Jason’s own grief. Leo wished Piper was here. She would know how to fix this, but then again, there would be nothing to fix if she were here, if Gaea hadn’t absorbed her into the earth as her last revenge. Leo shed a tear for her. One drop, rolling down his dirt stained cheek, leaving a streak of his dark skin free of soil. Maybe he and Piper had only known each other for a year, but they had been best friends. Jason, too. He had originated in their hearts as an illusion, but when he showed up in reality, he had just grown closer. The tear approached Leo’s jawline, and hung there, as if time had frozen, as if anyone had any control over time. _As if, what if, why not…_ _Who would do that to them?_ Leo thought, then answered his own questions. _Gaia. Gaia would, if she hadn’t, the giants, or mania, or monsters. They don’t care. They would._ Leo corrected himself. _They did. Why couldn’t they respect the lives of the demigods they killed?_ The question morphed in Leo’s mind and replaced itself with _Why couldn’t demigods respect the lives of monsters they killed?_ And then he answered himself. _Rebirth. The monsters can reform with memories of their past. They will come back. We won’t. We just die. We just die and when that happens, the buildup of personalities and emotions we developed over the years dissipate, gone. Piper was dissipated. Piper is gone_. The tear dropped into the earth, just one drop, just one salty sphere betraying his grief to the Gaia, now sleeping, but forever aware.  


	2. Percy

Annabeth and Percy sat on the beach. She leaned her head against his shoulder and he could hear her soft steady breathing as he stared at her blonde curls and her sleeping eyelids. He was comforted by her presence and by the gentle splashing of the ocean against the beaches as it extended itself to him and then receded with a soft rumble that nearly drowned out Clarisse’s deep voice calling some other camper “as despicable as Hades’ underwear!” However, the steady rhythm gave Percy too much time to think. He and Piper hadn’t talked much, but he knew that she and Annabeth had been good friends, especially after their trip to Sparta. He hadn’t, however, forgotten when she had stopped Jason and himself from killing each other. He couldn’t imagine how Jason felt. If Annabeth left… If anything happened to her, well, apart from Nico, she was the only other person who had ever been to Tartarus, and the only person who knew exactly what he had been through. He got the feeling she knew him better than he knew himself, her grey eyes were so penetrating. Suddenly, she gasped, her eyes flashing wide open. “Annabeth?” Percy questioned, startled. Her normally clear hard eyes were taking on a cloudy sheen. “Annabeth!” he yelled. His eyes traveled down from her paling face to her torso. He gasped, then pushed the breath out, then tried to take another huge gulp of air, but he couldn’t seem to get enough. A spear point poked out of her stomach, red ringed around it. “Annabeth, Annabeth, Annabeth… don’t… don’t leave me…”   
Annabeth opened her mouth, forming a thin crack between her lips. “Percy… I’ll be waiting, this’ll be a solo quest. Just one more. I’ll be waiting. Elysium…” she moaned.   
“… Annabeth, no. I need you. I can’t… I can’t.”   
“Percy, I… I-” She then fell silent, never to speak again.


	3. Jason

Gone. After everything, after all the survival, all the hopeful promises. Fate. Cruel, twisted fate. The rain that he had created mixed with his salty tears that fell gently on the ground. He felt his old imperial gold wound ache. It had healed when he was able to resolve his divisions between Greek and Roman, but now in his anguish, it had remade itself. Piper had understood him better than he did. Piper knew him. She was the one who knew exactly what to say when he was feeling weak, a hindrance. With her loss what was the point? Strength diminished, weakness conquers. I want it to end. I need it to end. But I need to continue, because what is death but finality, and I don't want it to end like this. I can't give up on our happily ever after. Legacies need to be created, stories learned from, and what is dishonor but letting the past retreat into the fog and obscurity? He summoned his will and tried to pull the storm inside himself. He pulled his extended tears and cries of rain and thunder and opened the doors of his soul, pulling it in. He struggled with encasing all his rage and he felt the thing deep inside him stretch and protest against the idea of holding all the pain and loss. Strangely, he felt empty and yet somehow to full at the same time, in the same way, for the same reason. How could this continue? Soon, I will explode or implode, succumb either to the bursting grief, or the emptiness that created an abyss that pulled in anything near it. Somehow, neither mediated the other but instead seemed to serve as catalysts. He stuffed his energy deep inside himself and felt the storm recede inside. He raised his head that had been hung in effort, and met eyes with Leo, his vision blurred by hot tears. He tried to convey his anguish in that stare, attempting at a silent explanation knowing words could never touch his fear, love, hate, grief, loss, anger, emptiness, and that feeling like that of an overfilled balloon.


End file.
